The present invention relates to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, this invention relates to data processing systems which are configured to perform a shift operation on an input data value.
It is known for a data processing system to be responsive to a shift instruction to perform a shift operation on an input data value, whereby the individual bits of the input data value are shifted by a specified shift distance either to the left or the right to generate a shifted data value. It is further known that when performing a shift operation it is possible for set data bits (i.e. typically 1's) in the input data value to be shifted to higher most significant bit positions than can be accommodated within the output data value, and as such the output data value is described as having “saturated”. Generally in this situation a maximum or minimum data value for the specified data range of the output data value is returned instead of the shifted data and the fact that the output data value has saturated is flagged.